Here at the end of the decade, I've recently heard several
knowledgeable people comment on how much the landscape of
publishing has shifted in the last few years. I thought
I'd use the changing of the calendar as an excuse to take a
quick look at some of these perceived shifts.

Conglomeratization will devour publishing. Here's a good
example of the attitude I've mentioned:

"A good many people who buy books or write them are
contending these days that during the past five or ten
years book publishing has been transformed by a series of
mergers, combinations, and other structural changes from a
cottage industry into big business. And some of them go on
to lament that the sensitive, cultivated Mr. Henry Holts,
Mr. Alfred Harcourts, and Mr. Horace Liverights seem to
have been replaced by faceless, soulless, anomic corporate
enterprises."

David Klein expressed this opinion in an article entitled
"The Anomic Age of Publishing." It was published in 1963
and I like to keep it on my desk as a reminder that people
have been lamenting this process for longer than I've been
alive. Somehow, all these mean mega-corporations haven't
yet ruined the business.

The truth of matters is that no business is noble, only
some of its practitioners are. For every honest
businessman of yore, there was at least one crook trying to
make a buck out of books. Read up on Mark Twain's
publishing adventures if you don't believe me. Or look
into the shenanigans of the 1920s publishers---back then,
one of their favorite publicity stunts was to try to get a
book banned.

I got in the business around the time of the big Bantam,
Doubleday, and Dell merger and people predicted doom then.
Somehow, even after they joined forces, that big mega-
corporation managed to publish a lot of first novels, a
host of books that will be classics, a lot of short-story
collections, and many offbeat, hard-to-classify books. The
nerve of them!

I'm sure there are examples of conglomeratization where the
publisher didn't fare as well. I'd also point to Tor Books
as an example of a company that has flourished since it got
bought by a bigger fish, but since I work for that bigger
fish, you might want discount my claim.

What is hard to overlook, however, is the fact that books
are singular things. Most corporations are run by people
who are smart enough to recognize that fact.

In short, I've seen the landscape here shift, but not
change fundamentally.

Giant bookstore chains will rule the world. This trend
isn't as old as the previous one---I've watched most of it
develop over the past decade. And while I thought Barnes &
Noble was particularly appalling in the way it drove away
small businesses around the country to seize certain
markets, I haven't seen much of a fundamental change in the
landscape here.

One reason for my sanguine attitude about the chains is
that I've had many occasions to hunt for copies of older
books or titles from smaller presses. Here in New York, I
found the smaller bookstores were less helpful generally
and I frequently ended my quest on the shelves of a large
chain store . . . thus ending my belief in the claim that
the megastores would hurt the small presses. There's no
substitute for good, enthusiastic management and staff. As
it happens, the single most knowledgeable and helpful clerk
I've ever encountered was in a chain bookstore outside of
Chicago.

One change I have seen is that the sf specialty stores have
been dying off this decade . . . replaced, it seems, with
mystery specialty stores. I'm not sure, but I think that
the sf stores were more vital in the 1970s, when it was
harder to find copies of the genre books. I do know that I
haven't had any trouble finding copies of specific sf or
fantasy titles in recent years, and the sf shops that are
managed best look to me like they're faring well.

Some doomsayers talk with dread about the fact that
publishers will consult with the bookstore chains before
publishing various titles. This is bad? Was it bad in the
1970s when Judy-Lynn del Rey phoned up the people running
various sf stores and asked them which authors were most in
demand?

Publishing has gotten ruder. Here is one area where I
think I have seen changes for the worse. Several years
ago, I received an unagented book proposal from a woman
with three novels to her credit. I declined the book, and
shortly afterwards, got a nice note from her thanking me
for taking the time to respond---she said that most
publishers never bothered to do so. From what I've seen,
this practice doesn't stem for an active desire to be rude
so much as it originates in the notion that writers without
agents are nobodies. Larger publishers nowadays frequently
adopt a policy of not even reading unagented submissions,
claiming to be too busy to do so. Personally, I think this
trend is the worst one I've seen . . . but I also know that
it assures the smaller publishers a healthy niche. The
more dinosaurs leave their eggs unattended, the more small
mammals can swoop in and gobble up the good ones.

Media tie-ins will destroy our field. Recently I heard a
writer describe his process of writing a tie-in as "a cross
between writing a Planet Stories story and writing one
for Wonder Stories." The tie-ins have replaced many of
the pulpier elements of the sf field, and while I'd rather
see the writer in question working on more original and
personal books, we both understand the importance of paying
the rent. Tie-ins have grown in popularity during the past
decade, but they haven't replaced the most innovative
elements of the field and they threaten to do so no more
than say, the Tom Swift books did in the 1950s.

Kids don't read sf anymore. When I was growing up,
parents worried that kids would no longer read at all. If
the mail I receive here is any indication, we're facing no
shortage of young readers for sf and fantasy. I don't know
that all the YA sf novels published in recent years will
make a difference. Isn't part of the joy of discovering sf
at the Golden Age of twelve or thirteen the joy in reading
books on a par with adults? The prototypical sf reader has
always been a brainy sort, inclined to read above his or
her level. What we need (always!) are more stories that
will fill our heads---kids and grown-ups alike---with that
lovely sense of wonder at the universe.

Kids don't attend sf conventions anymore. From what I've
observed, there's truth to this assertion. I'm convinced
the change has come because this is because the Internet
fills most of their needs. Way back when, conventions were
just about the only place a kid could go where he'd find
anyone who read "that weirdo sci-fi stuff" and would
discuss it with equal fervor. Nowadays, anyone can find
the same sort of discussion online. Plus, the whole "cult"
aspect of the genre---in the sense of being something
dedicated to preserving that which otherwise would be lost-
--has been supplanted by the World Wide Web. Time was when
you could only find old sf novels at conventions; now you
can search on the computer in five minutes and find most
anything.

This column's running longer than I intended, but let me
note a couple more changes I've seen: first novels are
easier to sell than they once were; third novels are harder
to sell than before; fewer fanzines seem to be published
with equal fervor (or is that just my misperception,
coupled with a nostalgia for mimeographs?); books are
generally longer than they used to be (thank you, o word
processor); and most writers are still misunderstood.

And while I'm on the subject of change, let me note that we
have a change in our reviewing line-up. Doug Winter's
career as a novelist has started to take off, leaving him
with less time for a regular review column. While we
haven't heard the last from him, his replacement in the
regular rotation is James Sallis. Jim was once an editor
of New Worlds and has written reviews and criticism for
the Washington Post Book World, The L. A. Times, and a
host of other publications. I think he's one of the
sharpest reviewers around and I think you'll find his
columns interesting.